A Battered Old Journal
by Terion
Summary: Hidden in the library of the Ferelden Circle Tower is a battered old leather-bound journal that has given the mages of Thedas hope. Within it are the accountings of Mathis Hawke during both the rise and fall of the Kirkwall Circle and his life after.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of the _Dragon Age_ universe but my games and strategy guides. This is just me making a mess in the sandbox.

**Author's Note:** This story follows my OC Mathis Hawke from the series of drabbles involving Treva Hawke: _Love Even in Death_, _Forging Anew_, _Coming Home_, and _Friends With Complications_. I would suggest reading those before this one.

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><p>There is a battered old leather-bound journal that the mages of Ferelden's Tower protect above any others.<p>

It came to the Tower over a hundred years ago, the only possession of a fifteen year-old boy who claimed only the name 'Hawke'. Hawke disappeared without a trace five days after he was brought in and how he managed that is still a mystery. A week later one of the Senior Enchanters found the journal hidden in the library and read it, each page bringing a revelation as to who its author had been and who the boy Hawke was.

He hid it in another place in the library and shared the existence of the journal with only those he trusted. In the years since that discovery, one mage or another has stumbled across the journal and read what was within, sharing it with others so almost all know of it. A handful of templars (including the current Knight-Commander) also know of its existence but they are the ones who understand that those they guard are still people.

Both groups guard the journal to keep it from being discovered by the Chantry. If the Divine knew what has grown within the Tower for a hundred years, what has spread out tentatively to other Circles through carefully coded correspondence and the rare travels, she would call for all of them to be annulled.

Because for a hundred years the knowledge that mages can be _free_ to live their lives without being trapped has existed. All thanks to a disappearing boy who claimed a name the Chantry declared _traitorous_ and _blasphemous_.

What work would we and our few templar allies go so far to hide?

Only one written by a mage who was born into that freedom could push all of us to such heights. The very public knowledge of his death, his mother's death, his uncle's death, and the survival of his sister and the children he writes of only aided our efforts.

The words of Mathis Hawke have influenced the mages of Thedas for a hundred years because the Divine of the Dragon Age, of the Faith Age, and of the current Age were wrong. Kirkwall was not full of heretics who allowed maleficarum free reign; it was full of men and women who merely wanted to live.

And it is the hope and dream of us all that one day what so briefly existed in Kirkwall will be the norm throughout Thedas.

– _from the journal of First Enchanter Colin Theirin, 11:20 Blood_


	2. Fifteen Solace, 9:56 Dragon

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of the _Dragon Age_ universe but my games and strategy guides. This is just me making a mess in the sandbox.

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><p>Is it sad that it's taken me seven years to figure out what to write in this journal? I mean, really, that just seems sad to me. Varric would be sorely disappointed in eleven year-old me for failing to put his birthday present to use.<p>

Of course he probably remembers that I was more interested in swords at the time.

Anyway, my Harrowing is what got me to pick this up again. Mother's been nervous since I turned eighteen so I know that it's coming; almost every other mage I know of has gone through their Harrowing around that age. Well, except Mother and Aunt Merrill.

I wish I knew just what the Harrowing entailed to make Mother so nervous about it (she's never nervous about anything!). You'd think the son of the First Enchanter would get some sort of secret knowledge but, no, I know the same things everyone else does. Which is pretty much nothing besides that sometimes mages go to their Harrowings and just…disappear.

My friend Naris reckons that they fail it and are killed but I don't believe that. Maybe before I was born when Meredith was Knight-Commander but not under Cullen. Mother would have his balls if he tried that sort of thing and she'd never be letting me or Elena go through with it. Well…if Elena goes through with it. Baby sister's eight now and she hasn't shown magic yet so Cullen and Mother figure it might have skipped her.

Shit, I'm getting distracted.

Back to my Harrowing. It's coming up and just in case I fail it, I figured I'd write some things down. Memories. Stories. Jokes. Things like that. That's the sort of stuff Varric's always saying makes the start for a story. Well, that and the hero dying but I've never liked that saying of his.

So I figured I'd fill this journal with whatever I can before I get called. After that...well, we'll see.


	3. Twentyseven Solace, 9:56 Dragon

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of the _Dragon Age_ universe but my games and strategy guides. This is just me making a mess in the sandbox.

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><p>So, yeah, took me a bit to figure out what to write first. I mean, there are lots of things I <em>could<em> write about but I figure if this gets read later it should be important stuff. The sort of things people want to know – or that Mother would want to reread if I, you know, die or something. Seems like the thing to do.

Okay, okay, so I asked Varric for his advice on where I should start. He told me to not write anything about mage equality because he's sick of it (I'm really not sure what _that_ tirade was about) and to start at the beginning.

So...the beginning.

Well, I can't say that I remember _everything_ from birth but I have recollections: flashes of sounds and images and smells. The stone-wood-metal-Fade smell that permeates the Gallows is _home_. The brush of feathers across my cheek is _safety_. Mother crying is terrible gut-wrenching _sadness_.

Beyond those I have kept few memories from before I was about nine years old. There is one, however, that I will never, ever forget for however long I may live and that is the day I discovered my magic.

It was the Satinalia after I turned six and Kirkwall had turned itself upside down in celebration of the festival. After the things the city had seen in years previous, they took their partying very seriously (and still do). Anyway, Uncle managed to convince Mother to let me leave the Gallows and see the city early in the day before the celebrating turned into the sort children weren't allowed to see. It took some begging on both our parts – given she was and is still convinced someone might mistake me for my father – but she allowed it.

I don't remember much of the actual day other than Uncle asking my opinion on a ring for Aunt Merrill. Yes, little cousins, if you're reading this, I helped pick out Auntie's wedding ring! As Uncle said, "Six year olds are painfully honest so you'll tell me right off if you think it's stupid." And that is exactly true because I've helped raise all of you.

Well, there was the ring and the visit to the family estate in Hightown. Uncle and I didn't do much more than just sit on the steps to eat our lunch but he told me stories. Talked about visiting Grandmother in the estate and checking in on Mother. He even told me about the slavers that had taken over the estate because of Uncle Gamlen and how he, Mother, Varric, and my father sent them fleeing with their tails between their legs.

Sitting on the estate steps leads me up to my magic.

The whole of the square in front of the estate was bustling with people looking around or dragging carts trying to get ready for later in the day. It was _busy_; so much busier than my six year old eyes had ever seen before. So I was watching everything, trying to take it all in.

That was when the mother cat darted out of hiding with two kittens in her mouth.

Me, I love cats. Cullen brought several into the Gallows before I was born and taught them to mouse for us since there was an infestation of vermin after all the fighting. I named them all when I was little and left bowls of milk everywhere that I possibly could for them. Mother cried sometimes when she found them and I didn't understand until later that it was because my father had done the same thing around his clinic in Darktown.

Anyway, this mother cat darts out, obviously trying to get away from all these crazy noisy humans that have suddenly surrounded her. There was this one cart moving at a fast clip – one of the few with a mule to drag it around since it was carting some heavy looking stuff – and she had the unfortunate luck to bolt in front of it. She spooked the mule, which kicked out at her and caused her to drop one of her kittens as she tried to dash away.

The cart ran over the kitten. It was so swift a moment that I nearly missed it but once I realized that little body was limp on the ground, there wasn't any stopping me. I was up before I could clearly think, before Uncle could grab me, and I darted into the crowd like a mad thing. Snatching up that warm little body, I then turned to head back to my Uncle only to be stopped by the realization that I could feel so much more than just the kitten's warmth.

I could suddenly feel the blood speeding through its veins, the heart hammering wildly in the tiny chest, its lungs fighting for one more gasp of air, and the agony of broken bones tearing into fragile skin. The kitten's pain was suddenly my pain and I drew in a deep breath in that moment, reached blindly for something that would help it, and found _life._ My magic knitted it back together and by the time Uncle shoved through the crowd to me, I was cradling a terrified mewling kitten in my arms with a look of shock on my face.

Uncle may be a templar but he grew up in a home that had three apostates. So he knew what had happened from just the look on my face without having to even sense the magic. He walked me right back to the Gallows and straight to Mother, telling her straight off that – word for word – "for all I may have disliked him, Anders' healing ability bred true." I remember she froze, staring at me in something that was a sad sort of pride, and then started crying.

Six year-old me comforted her and tried to show her my kitten (who I later dubbed Valiant because he later had no fear of anything), not knowing what was wrong. It wasn't until recently that I even learned that my own mother had hoped that her magic and my father's would pass over me.

So, anyway, that's it. That's the story of how I discovered my magic, which is proof that not every mage comes into their power violently like so many think.


	4. Nine August, 9:56 Dragon

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of the _Dragon Age_ universe but my games and strategy guides. This is just me making a mess in the sandbox.

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><p>Bit of a time skip on this next one. Like I said in the last entry, there's not much I clearly remember before I turned nine years old. After that…I remember almost everything.<p>

This next event occurred when I was ten in Harvestmere, just a few days before Satinalia. I was left on my own a lot more in those days as Mother was two months away from giving birth to my baby sister, Cullen half didn't know what to do with himself at that prospect, and Uncle was more often with Aunt Merrill as they'd just found out she was with child. So I spent what time I wasn't tied up in classes or tutoring with Siegfried was joining in with the templar initiates my age to spar.

Being a templar never called to me, mind you. I may have grown up in the Gallows but I was raised by a mage who spent most of her life running from them. No matter how much she trusted them nor how much love she held for Uncle and Cullen, Mother taught me early that not all templars are the same. The helping of horror stories I heard from some of the younger mages who'd been my age or younger during the fighting helped cement my wariness of the profession.

I love my uncle and Cullen is the only father I've ever known but…I couldn't do what they do.

Swords, though, now _there's_ something that calls to me. Uncle blames Mother for my fascination with sharp objects but it was his stories of fighting in Starkhaven that actually sparked it. The stories of Mother's fights were always distant, back away from that roiling mess that's at the center of a battle. Uncle's, on the other hand, were always right there in the middle of that madness where survival danced on the edge of the sword in hand.

So for future reference note that it is not a good idea to tell an impressionable five year old war stories, even if they are censored. And I know I'm rambling again but I promise this has a point.

One of the younger initiates was a boy named William: son of a Ferelden refugee like me but forced into the templars by his father. He was never fond of me, not from the moment he arrived in the Gallows when I was six, and always took the opportunity to remind me of what my father had done. His mother had been in the Chantry when…well, you probably know what happened. Short story, she died and he blamed me since my father was dead.

He was a bully too and I spent a lot of time working to avoid him since he was two years older than me. Didn't really help much as William liked to pick on my friend Tara and, as Uncle says, "Hawkes don't abandon family, Mathis, or friends, not if we can help it."

Amongst the templars I couldn't avoid William and that day we didn't have an instructor who knew to keep us apart. So when we got paired together and he got this mad look in his eye, I had to struggle to not go against Cullen's number one rule when he let me into training: never strike in anger. Following that is how I ended up on the courtyard stones with a bloodied lip, a handful of bruises, and the tip of William's waster jabbed into my throat.

I remember those hateful words he spoke then: _Your father was a monster and you're going to be just like him. And I'll be there, monster, to kill you._ They weren't words idly spoken – William meant them with every fiber of his being. I imagine now that most of that was his father's influence, taking out the anger at the loss of his wife on a young son who, in turn, took it out on the son of his mother's killer. If I'd been in his shoes, I probably would have hated me too.

Ten year-old me didn't think like that though. He _hated_ William for the things he'd said and for every little thing he'd put Tara and every other child he bullied through. So I snapped back without thinking that the Chantry deserved to be destroyed because it had been as bad as everything else in the city back then.

It is a terrifying thing to see another human being go mad.

That's what happened to William. I watched it and I still can't tell you exactly how the shift between hate and madness looked. It was just…indescribable and terrifying.

He abandoned the waster and leapt on me, fists flying as he sat all of his heavier bulk on my rib cage. I remember lifting my arms to protect my face, still trying to follow Cullen's rule against attacking in anger but it started to get to where I couldn't breathe or feel my legs. William was yelling, the instructor was yelling, and I was getting _scared_ and _angry_.

I don't know exactly how long that went on but I do remember when it ended. Magic roiled wildly within me, building and building until it exploded outward. Then I could breathe again.

And William was dead.

I heard later what happened as the instructor tried to pull the older boy off of me. He said William was there one minute, raining down blows, and the next he was in the air. Apparently he flew twenty feet before he came down on the back of his neck and snapped it clean through. He was dead instantly.

I tried to heal him though, I remember that. Through the tears of horror and the pain, I remember trying everything Siegfried had taught me. I may have hated him then but I never wanted him dead.

Cullen refused to let any charges be filed against me like William's father wanted after he heard what happened. I got a scolding from him and Mother for what I said and punished by being told I couldn't take a step out of the Gallows for a month. Some thought it was too soft a punishment. Uncle said though that anyone that looked me in the eyes after that knew I'd never see that scene repeat.

I've never forgotten that day, that moment when I spoke without thinking and killed a boy. Sometimes the look on William's face as he was thrown upwards into the foreign air still haunts me in that place halfway between waking and the Fade. I never remember it in waking but it's always there, lurking in the dark.


	5. Thirteen August, 9:56 Dragon

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of the _Dragon Age_ universe but my games and strategy guides. This is just me making a mess in the sandbox.

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><p>The day my little sister was born was a day gone mad.<p>

Not in a bad way, mind you. It's just that the Gallows was _full_ of people that day once word got out that the Champion's child was coming. You couldn't turn without bumping into anybody and after two hours of that the Senior Enchanters finally gave up on teaching classes.

It's hard to keep the attention of a bunch of children who're distracted not only by a good few hundred voices in the main courtyard but the fact that someone very important was being born. Not every day that there's a child born between a First Enchanter and a Knight-Commander (never mind that they were unofficial ones) and we all knew it.

I remember Tara and I played in one of the smaller courtyards for most of that day, periodically breaking to watch the waiting crowd through the bars of the portcullis someone had lowered. After dinner though I made my way towards our rooms and sat on a low bench next to Varric and Auntie. That they both looked worried is what I recall the most from that day before Cullen came out with this great big smile on his face to say I had a sister.

Okay, so I lied – this day really was one gone mad in a bad way. I just didn't know that until much later when Siegfried got around to the subject of childbirth and a healer's place in it. Which, to note, was a subject I discovered I really hadn't wanted to know about because that man has some terrifying stories.

It was impressive really that they kept the problems with Elena's birth quiet when it got out that she was coming. Of course _that_ got out because Mother was in the middle of class when the birth started and one stupid ninny went running to all her gossipy friends. Anyway, I won't share exactly what went on because hearing the whole thing just makes everything worse. Anyone reading this also might never want to have children again after hearing it (I'm still a little iffy on that one and I know how to – mostly – fix the things that go wrong).

Siegfried's basic explanation that he gave me a year ago was that a woman who's done as much as Mother has in her life is going to have some difficulties in childbirth. That and her age as most women in their forties have already had all the children they will have. Those two things combined together almost made us lose them both if it weren't for Siegfried's skills.

We made it through all that madness, though, with everyone safe and me an unknowing ten year-old who was excited over his new sister. A little sister who is currently in need of a bedtime story it would seem judging by the sound of bare feet and giggles outside my door, so that's all for now.


	6. Thirty August, 9:56 Dragon

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of the _Dragon Age_ universe but my games and strategy guides. This is just me making a mess in the sandbox.

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><p>Y'know, if you're someone who isn't family that's reading this, you're might be a bit confused as to who exactly I or my family am. Well, here's the rundown.<p>

Mother's name is Treva Hawke, daughter of Malcolm Hawke and Leandra Amell, sister to Carver and Bethany Hawke. She came to Kirkwall when the Blight was ravaging Ferelden and…well, a lot of hardship followed. I'm sure I haven't heard all the stories of what happened (though I think next time Isabella's in town I can talk a few more out of her) but she ended up being declared the city's Champion. Saved it twice too; once from the Qunari, earning her title, and once from tearing itself apart after my father blew up the Chantry.

Now that's a trickier subject…my father. On the one hand there's the man who helped bring me into the world: Anders or Mathis Baur as was his name before he was taken to the Ferelden Circle. And on the other hand there's the man who helped raise me, married my mother, and is my baby sister's father: Cullen. A revolutionary and a sworn templar, there could be no greater difference between these two men that Mother loves. They are both, though, my father's – one by blood and one by action.

Speaking of Cullen, there's my baby sister: Elena Hawke. I know, I know, we both have Mother's name but that's because Cullen doesn't have a last name that he recalls and it would be useless to try to contact that Chantry orphanage he was raised in. She's a few months shy of being eight and is as much of a troublemaker as I'm told I was at her age. Though that's mostly because I give her pointers but no one needs to know that.

That covers the immediate family but there's also my uncle Carver Hawke. He married Merrill Alerion two years before Mother and Cullen were but the eldest of my little cousins is a year younger than Elena. They've been busy bees too, my aunt and uncle, and have all-together added three crazy rug rats to the crowd that seems to be constant around the Gallows. And, yes, cousins mine, you are, were, and always will be rug rats to me so don't be making faces at this if you're reading. That means you don't pull Uncle's annoyed face, Ceindrech, don't you set the pages on fire, Eithne, and don't either of you let Bran drool on it. Yes, I mean that even if he's my age while reading this.

'Course there's Gamlen Amell, my great-uncle, but we don't really see much of him except on mine, Elena, or one of our cousins' birthdays. His daughter, my Cousin Charade, though, is a frequent visitor to the Gallows and I think she has her eye on one of Cullen's templars.

As for the other names I mentioned, I never got to meet them. Grandmother apparently died in Kirkwall, a victim of a blood mage. Grandfather died years before they even left Ferelden, brought down by a disease. And my Aunt Bethany, who Uncle sometimes says I remind him of (in temperament at least), was killed by an ogre while they were fleeing from Lothering.

That's immediate family…now there's extended. Whew, this is going to be a list!

Aveline and Donnic Hendyr of the Guard are practically mine, Elena, and the cousins' aunt and uncle. She's tried for forever to pretend she doesn't like to be called 'Aunt' but Donnic gave her away and told me she does. Obviously I call her that all the time now.

Of course there's Varric Tethras, who gave me this journal. I've loved listening to his stories about Mother's escapades in the city for years but, as Uncle cautioned me, I always take them with a grain of salt.

Now, the more elusive of the extended family exists in Fenris, Isabela, and Sebastian Vael.

Uncle was gone for the first few years of my life helping Sebastian reclaim Starkhaven and we haven't really seen much of him since. He helps supply us with what we need while the world goes mad around us, though. Oh, and Mother got an invitation to his wedding; apparently he's marrying the daughter of the Warden King. Mother finds that highly amusing considering King Alistair's opinion of mages and how he gave the Ferelden Circle its freedom long before my father sparked his revolution.

As for Fenris and Isabela, they have this weird love-hate relationship that they both claim isn't a relationship at all. Like Mother says though, "Everyone knows they're knocking boots, they just don't have the balls to say it out loud." We see them every time Isabela decides to blow into port or whenever Varric manages to wrangle one of his out-of-nowhere lyrium shipments through her.

Oh, and of course there's my friends Naris and Tara.

Naris is half-elf like my cousins and lives with her mother in Lowtown. She only really ended up with us as kids because somehow the Gallows became the place to bring we littles when the rest of the city was busy rebuilding. Not quite sure how that turned out but apparently with Mother and Cullen both there, everyone thought it was the safest place. She's brash, pushy, and really mouthy but she's a damn loyal friend, I'll tell you that. Packs a mean wallop with a waster too – I've got the bruises to prove it.

Now, if anyone can be called my best friend, it's Tara. Her father was one of the templars Cullen banished from the city because they were too steeped in Commander Meredith's views and her mother abandoned her. I remember the first time I saw her she was crying and I took her to Mother, who assured her that she was wanted after William told her she wasn't. Yes, the same William I accidentally killed. We survived his bullying together, studied together, played pranks together…Maker, we practically do everything together. She's the sweetest person I know after Aunt Merrill, if a bit of a perfectionist.

Anyway, that's it. That's my family, blood and extended, and my friends.


	7. Ten Kingsway, 9:56 Dragon

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of the _Dragon Age_ universe but my games and strategy guides. This is just me making a mess in the sandbox.

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><p>I miss my cat.<p>

Sure, as Naris continually points out, there are plenty of cats in the Gallows that I could claim as my own. I practically already do that as I feed most of them anyway.

Valiant, though, he was _my_ cat. He wasn't just some mouser that gets fed by everyone and has more than a dozen names because every other child gives him a new one. My first act of magic was putting him back together.

Naris doesn't understand that. Like the Gallows, Lowtown has dozens of cats and the random stray dog that have however many names people want to give them. They're not like Valiant or even Mother's old mabari Tristan.

Even Tara doesn't really get it but she tries.

_Most of the rest of the page is empty except for an addition near the bottom._

I think I'll do what Tara suggested and claim a kitten from the next batch that's born. As she put it, that way I'll stop writing mopey journal entries (I don't think this is mopey; do you think this is mopey?).


	8. Twentyone Kingsway, 9:56 Dragon

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of the _Dragon Age_ universe but my games and strategy guides. This is just me making a mess in the sandbox.

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><p>Isabela and Fenris swept into port for the first time in five years today. Normally I'd write cheerfully about that but it wasn't such a cheerful scene when I took Elena down to meet them at the docks. She doesn't really remember them as she was three the last time they were in town so she wasn't as excited as I was.<p>

At least until we actually got to the docks. Then everything sort of fell apart.

I saw Isabela standing at the end of the gangplank that extended from her ship and waved, same as I had the last time I'd seen her at thirteen. She stared at me like she didn't recognize me, her face draining to this ghastly sand-like color thanks to her dark complexion. Then horror flashed across her face and she shouted something that I couldn't make out from how far away we were.

Immediately after a foreign sensation lashed across every magical sense I have – which are pretty damn sensitive according to Siegfried judging by my skill at healing since it's a delicate magic. Then I looked up and saw furious green eyes amid white hair charging at me.

My hands found Elena's shoulders and spun her around to tuck her tightly against my body as I curled protectively over her quite before my brain caught up with my actions. As soon as it did, every instinct screamed to turn around and not leave my back open, but I shoved the urge aside. I pulled a shield around us and breathed a prayer to Mythal to keep us safe (because I prefer the elven gods over the Maker and the Chantry given what it has done and what its actions made my father do).

I felt the blade strike the shield as I finally heard Isabela's voice screaming the words _It's not him, it's not him_. Instantly the foreign sensation against my senses disappeared as well as the feel of the heavy blade against the shield. I could feel Elena shaking in my arms and looked down to see tears on her cheeks as she stared up at me.

Then movement at the corner of my eye caught my attention and I turned my head to stare at Isabela's distraught face. She reached out until her hand pressed against the shield and said that I could let the shield go. I straightened as I did just that and moved a few steps away from her and Fenris who'd appeared next to her, dragging Elena along with me. I'm sure with my wary steps and my eyes on them I looked like a hunted animal.

And rightly so, I suppose, because at that moment I felt like one.

Fenris apologized in that quiet voice of his and then his eyes met mine as he stated five words that shook my world.

_I thought you were Anders._

In that moment all of Mother's, Uncle's, and Aunt Merrill's comments on my resemblance came back to me. Even a few of the other mages, templars, and townsfolk have commented on it. The only person that never has to my knowledge is Cullen but I know his reasons because I've asked. I don't compare him to the man I never knew and he doesn't either despite (apparently) almost everything about me calling back to him.

I stared at him, eyes wide, then whirled as Mother's magic washed over me, full of rage and fire. She swept into the docks with none of it visible but I could feel it there lurking, intangible and ready to blaze into furious storm if she saw reason for it to. At the sight of her and Cullen behind her, Elena tore herself away from me and ran to them, first hugging Mother about the waist before she went to her father. Cullen swept her up and she clung to his armor as he continued walking behind Mother, following her on her path towards the rest of us.

Her eyes swept over me and I felt the brief touch of her magic, what little healing she knows assessing me. Then she turned towards Fenris and Isabela and I felt her magic snap fiercely like a flag in the wind. The lyrium lines on Fenris' body flared with light briefly in what I assume was a response then went dark again as he caught her eyes then looked away as he said, _I'm sorry, Hawke._ _I thought he-_

_I know what you thought because I see it every day!_ snapped Mother and I stared at her, my heart suddenly racing even faster than it had when I was in danger. There was old, terrible pain in her voice and I knew why. She hadn't told me herself but I found out from Uncle that she'd been the one to kill my father. Only…I hadn't thought of what that meant before, hadn't connected that with the comments on my resemblance to him.

I have been tormenting my mother for years without knowing it and there is nothing I can do to fix that. The realization hurts more than I can put into words and I can't even imagine what she has gone through all these years.

Perhaps my younger self had a good reason to never want to relive the battles of the Champion with the other children and only those of the Warden. Did I have an innate sense then that I later lost of what Mother had gone through?

I don't really know what happened on the docks after that as I turned and ran, unable to bear standing there anymore. The logical place to have gone would have been back to the home I've always known, to the Gallows in the room I've had since I turned fifteen or the one I grew up in. Even running to sit outside the door of our estate in Hightown would have been more logical. I, however, ran much farther in my attempt to get away.

All the way to Darktown, to the remnants of my father's clinic.

Darktown has been aided by Mother and Cullen's efforts in the city and it is a true part of it, a thriving region of tunnels where the residents no longer suffer or starve. They have all, however, left this space empty in remembrance. Some of them even bring flowers or other tokens and leave them at the doors underneath the lamps that haven't been lit in eighteen years.

The rest of the city may remember my father for his last act, for the pillar of fire that razed the sky, but Darktown remembers him for a decade of healing those that everyone else had abandoned. I respect them for that.

How long I sat down there on an old desk in the dark I don't know. Uncle, however, is the one that found me there. He didn't scold like I expected or immediately drag me out of there. Instead he sat the lantern he was carrying down on the ground and carefully leaned his weight against one corner of the desk. And he waited there in silence until I was ready to talk.

I asked if Mother hated me for looking so like my father. _Never think that,_ was Uncle's first response, his voice fierce. Then it softened as he continued, _She could never hate you for looking like him, Mathis. I've asked before and she said that seeing him again through you is one of the best gifts she's ever gotten. The only issue she has with it is how it could harm you, how people could take their anger against him out even farther on you._

Then I asked if she was angry.

_Just worried you might have gotten yourself into trouble._ He then smiled and said, _But I'm going to guess that you've come down here pretty often, haven't you?_

I just shrugged, not wanting to reveal that I'd snuck down into Darktown at thirteen to find this place and had been coming back ever since. The locals who'd been there when my father was had guessed at who I was and pointed me on my way back then. One or two always bring me food when I'm down there and ask for a bit of minor magic for this ache or that little cut.

They don't need what my father provided anymore but what little I can do, I do. Guess it's my own way of trying to negate all the pain he caused.

Uncle just nodded at my silence and asked, _Are you ready to come back up?_ When I didn't answer, he said, _Fenris and Isabela are gone if that's what you're worried about. And if you're wondering why he attacked you in the first place, he's seen too many mages try to bring people back to life with bad consequences. He was, honestly, thinking of all of us when he ran at you._

His words made sense but they don't stop my hands from trembling as I think of Fenris charging at me with the intent to kill in his eyes as Isabela's horrified voice rang through the port. Even now as I write this they're shaking just the little bit. I imagine they will for years.

Suffice to say that I walked out of Darktown with Uncle not long after his question and comment. Mother was there at the entrance, her graying hair free of its normal tie to fall about her shoulders and mix with the feathers of my father's old coat. She ran at us, at me, and flung her arms around me to squeeze me tightly.

Normally it amuses me that her arms don't reach around me as far as they used to since I've grown up and that I'm taller than her. Now though, after today, I wanted to be little again so she could gather me up in her arms and wrap us both in the folds of her coat. Instead I had to wrap my arms around her and bend my knees slightly as well as hunch my shoulders so I could drop my head onto her shoulder.

I breathed in the smell of her coat, old feathers and cloth with a hint of stone and magic that mixed with her own smell, and every muscle went loose from a tightness I hadn't known was there. Then I felt her jerk and a hand touched my face, smoothing back my hair as I realized I'd spoken a question without realizing it.

My first question to Uncle when he'd found me. I wanted to hear it from her.

She only answered with a smile and one word: _Never._

And I broke down in tears. After that, the rest of the night is a bit of a blur.

Like I wrote earlier, the realization that I've hurt her without knowing it is more than I can put into words. I've never wanted to disappoint Mother, never wanted her to look at me badly…but in that moment, behind her smile and her softly spoken word, I could see pain in her eyes.

Being attacked by someone I consider family is nothing compared to that pain. What does compare, though, is that I can never fix this.


End file.
